


Read Me A Story

by Badwolf36



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Coda, Episode: s03e14 More Bad Than Good, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 23:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badwolf36/pseuds/Badwolf36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia hands Stiles a solution to his little "literacy" problem. Coda to "More Bad Than Good."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Read Me A Story

**Title:** Read Me A Story

 **Fandom:** Teen Wolf

 **Rating:** G

 **Characters:** Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin

 **Word count:** 1,006

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Teen Wolf or any related properties.

 **Warnings:** Coda to "More Bad Than Good."

 **Summary:** Lydia hands Stiles a solution to his little "literacy" problem.

 

 

Stiles is pulling his Pre-Calculus book out of his locker when Lydia walks up. He takes a minute to examine her (strawberry blonde hair twisted into a braid, a cerulean blue wrap dress, strappy high heels in a coordinating shade of blue) before he takes note of the fact that she’s holding something out to him.

“Uh…what’s that?” he asks as he examines the transparent purple flash drive in her palm.

“A flash drive,” she answers, impatient. “For you. Would you just take it already?”

“Right. Yeah.” He slips his math book into his backpack before taking the flash drive from Lydia, the warmth of her fingers against his a bit of shock. He thinks back to her as she’d been a few days ago, pressed up against him after he saved her from being horrifically mauled by an animal trap. “What’s on it?”

“I was thinking about your…issue,” she says, and the way she says “issue” is so much more delicate than the way he’s been summing it up to himself, which is “You’re losing your freaking mind because you climbed into a bathtub and died for 16 hours as a sacrifice to an ancient, magical tree to save your dad, which, hey!, left a door to some ultimate darkness open in your mind that will leave you unable to tell your dreams from reality and, as a bonus, leave you unable to read. Good luck with that!”

He likes Lydia’s version better.

“That was…uh…nice of you?” Stiles hazards, and manages a smile when Lydia gives him a small one of her own. “So, what’s this?”

Lydia opens her mouth to answer when the bell goes off.

“A useful gift,” she says quickly. “You better appreciate the effort I put into it. See you later.”

And then, flicking her braid over her shoulder, she struts down an adjacent hallway to the one they were in and disappears.

Stiles stares after her, bemused, as the hall empties around him. It’s when he realizes that he’s going to be late to Pre-Calculus that he sticks the flash drive in his pocket, shoulders his backpack, and powerwalks his way to his class.

He forgets about the flash drive until after school, when he’s slinging his bag on his bed and tossing his keys onto his desk and the thing jabs him.

Digging it out from where it’s been resting against the curve of his hip, he holds it up to the light streaming in from one of his windows and examines it.

It seems innocent enough, but he’s certainly had that notion disproved plenty of times since he became intimately acquainted with the supernatural world.  

“Alright, Lydia,” he says, throwing himself into his desk chair and plugging in the flash drive. “What do you consider ‘a useful gift’?”

The flash drive boots up and opens a window on Stiles’ computer. Double-clicking the file icon labeled “For Stiles,” the window rapidly fills with dozens of music note icons.

“What the…?” Stiles says, before taking a closer look at the file names. They blur briefly, the letters jumbling together before shuffling off to the side of the screen.

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and thinks of his dad (worried about him, upset about the way Special Agent McCall was leading a witch hunt against him, but _alive_ , so alive, still alive to face that, because of what he and Scott and Allison had done). He concentrates on that feeling, that twisted sense of pride and relief, and when he opens his eyes, the letters have leaped back to their proper positions.

When he finally reads the first few file names, he bursts out laughing.

He clicks on the first one, and a rich baritone intones, “The Notebook. By Nicholas Sparks. Published by Warner Books. Chapter One.”

Stiles pauses the file and stares at his computer.

Audiobooks.

Lydia, the smart, amazing person that she is, has given him dozens of audiobooks because he can’t (couldn’t? can’t?) read. And there’s not just chick lit among the collection either, because Lydia truly is a genius, something she’s finally stopped hiding. There’s narrated articles on brain chemistry, PTSD, and depression. There’s a biography on Winston Churchill (which makes him laugh harder and wonder if Ms. Morrell recommends his quotes to everyone she counsels) and another one of Marie Curie. There’s also, surprisingly, a couple of sci-fi novels.

When he finishes looking through the list, he snags his phone out of his bag and uses the voice text feature because he’s already tired and doesn’t want to fight if the letters leap away again.

“You are a genius,” he enunciates, and jams his thumb against the envelope icon.

The response, when it comes, only blurs out for a moment before he can read it. It’s two words: “I know.”

He snorts, and feels hopeful for the first time since he gripped his dad’s badge tight and breathed in water without ever expecting to breathe air again.

Unable to wipe the grin off his face, Stiles clicks an icon at random, leans back with his arms behind his head, and lets himself be immersed in the way the tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” is being spun by a pretty female alto voice.

And in that moment, the darkness inside him doesn’t feel quite so heavy. He’s the guy to always figure things out, so he’s going to do just that, Nemeton-caused illiteracy or not. And with friends like Lydia and the rest of their little ragtag pack behind him, he feels confident that he will.

He has to, because the alternative (madness, never-ending darkness, his world ripping itself apart) isn’t worth considering. He refuses to let that happen.

What he is going to let happen though, for just a few minutes, is some laughter as he imagines a wolfed-out Derek dressed up in some funky old grandma clothes. _That image_ deserves his full attention and doesn’t require a single written word to send him giggling off his chair and to the floor.

 


End file.
